City of San Jose Larger Garbage Cart Pilot Program Rollout

Recycling contamination rates have slowly risen throughout the years of the city's Recycle Plus program, rising from roughly 20% in the early 2000s, to 57% contamination after the pandemic lockdowns. The routes selected for the pilot program averaged even higher at about 73%, with some as high as 87% contamination. Many solutions and outreach efforts over the years failed to remedy the issue, resulting in fines to companies for failure to reach diversion rates.
Phase 1:
Two simultaneous programs ran on selected routes. On one hand, California Waste Solutions began replacing lids and older carts with ones that had graphic instructions. Garden City Sanitation hired a third party company to exchange all garbage carts with a 96 gallon garbage cart. Residents that already had a 96 gallon cart could opt for an additional 96 gallon cart.
Phase 2:
The city debuted a new graphic lid design for all streams in June 2023. Like previously, California Waste Solutions will begin replacing lids and older carts with ones that have the new graphic instructions. Garden City Sanitation did away with a third party contractor, citing issues with broken and missing salvaged parts. They instead opted to have pool drivers from both Milpitas Sanitation and Garden City Sanitation to conduct the rollout. Unlike the first phase, residents were given one size up of what they originally had.
The carts themselves had some issues with them. A lot of them had missing wheels or axles, and there weren't any extras provided in the stack. Most of the carts had slanted, or spotty hotstamps that were filled in with paint pens from the factory. A few had entirely missing hotstamps. All of the carts had injection molding defects, like flashing, and flow lines being visible. Some even had the axle slots molded over. Very disappointing from Otto Environmental.
Many residents came out thanking us for the much-needed larger carts, but they all were dismayed with the current rates. Most said once the program ends, they will not seek to keep the larger cart because of the fees associated with it. ($51.40/mo for 32g, $102.80/mo for 64g, $154.20 for 96g)
FYI, most of the old carts you saw being collected will be reused.
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For additional information, refer to the links below;
MERCURY NEWS ARTICLE;
www.mercurynew...
(12ft.io/ to bypass paywall)
PHASE 1;
www.sanjoseca....
www.sanjoseca....
STATUS REPORT (03/13/2023);
sanjose.legist...
PHASE 2;
www.sanjoseca....
www.sanjoseca....
imgur.com/a/Db...
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Special thanks to;
Rodrigo, for putting me into contact with a crew
Sal, for allowing us to tag along on day one
Louis, for allowing me to film
Edgar, for allowing me to film
Ricardo, for allowing me to film
Brian, for allowing me to film and keeping me updated on rollout locations
Enjoy the video!
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SOCIAL MEDIA/MISCELLANEOUS LINKS
►Instagram: / sanjosegarbagetrucks
►Facebook: / sanjosecagarbagetrucks
►Flickr: www.flickr.com...
►SJRecycles: sanjoserecycle...
►SJ Collection Day Lookup: gis.sanjoseca....
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[@TheTransitCamera]

Nice footage, thanks for recording. I'd be a bit peeved if my nice 65g Otto Classic got swapped for a crappy 65 Edge, but I'm sure most residents don't care about that and are just happy with a fresh new can. Wow, those monthly prices are insane, I'd take the attitude of 'screw it, throw whatever doesn't fit in the 32 in the recycle' too. Honestly I doubt new lid graphics even make much of a difference generally. I think most folks are making those decisions in their kitchen or whereever and when they get out to the cart it's just, put bag of trash in trash, put bag of stuff I think is recycle in recycle, boom, done.

[@wnytrashtrucks]

up to 87% contamination! Holy shit, but what do you expect when you are charging $50 a month for a 32 gallon cart. Around here you can get two 96 trash cans and a 96 recycle for that price. The contamination rate will not get any better charging those prices

[@MoonheartEnigma]

look smaller then what normaly see. the Garbage Carts we have are huge and heavy. (milwaukee),

[@WMAC_Master]

always love rollout videos but MAN. I HATE how people just can't read a simple label. Its not *that* hard. Too bad those ottos were low quality, did they try to fix some of them? The new rehrigs we got a couple years ago had some missing/crooked labels on the lids but not that many.

[@Trainlover1995]

GreenTeam areas were affected, too. I remember several months ago, I was going outside to take our carts in, and found that our Western Waste-issued Otto 32 had been replaced by a new Otto or Rehrig 64. I had no idea what to do with it because it wouldn't fit where we usually kept the 32 in the garage.

[@russellyoung6654]

Are you aware of anyway to buy older carts. Do you think the companies will allow us the purchase old carts?

[@RecologySpencer]

I'm interested to see how this turns out for San Jose. Seems like a very good idea, I'm mainly wondering if recycling contamination will actually go down or if people are just clueless about what goes where. Still surprises me how high SJ's rates are, even compared to SF and up here in Seattle, where cart size usually reflects price. Seems like SJ just adds $20-$60 onto the cart size and calls it good. Do you know if SJ ships their trash far away to be buried? That's why Seattle's rates are high too - all trash is trained to Oregon landfills. Good to hear the older Classics and even wheelies will likely be reused, most in great condition. How long is the city planning to run this pilot for?

[@WMAC_Master]

meanwhile livemore which has $129 / 35 gallon cart

[@RecologySpencer]

@@WMAC_Master seriously?!

[@WMAC_Master]

@@RecologySpencer apparently so

[@Soccerdude587]

Oh no what the old cans are no longer there

[@garbagetrucksofsanmarcosca]

Awesome video man